Hello Dr. Smith. I'd like to ad this to the conversation, specifically because I think w/o it, men's positions are seriously misrepresented here. IDK if it's mentioned in your book, but there are 2 critical points of information. 1st, 92% of divorces are initiated by women. That in itself makes the relevance of marriage fade for men. Men are committed - women are not. 2nd, it's not that men stray away from conflict, it's just that women want to emasculate their men. They want him soft & tender, to fight the way they say they should fight. Men are dangerous, & they're supposed to be that way. And the woman should want him to remain that way. Does she want him hiding behind her when a burglar comes through the window one night, or, does she want him to handle his business? I listened to you on Fox & Friends this morning, & Mark Levin the other day. I'm sure that men wouldn't have a problem with any of the challenges associated w/marriage if they at least women were more committed. There's a 92% chance that your marriage will end up in divorce - because the woman determines it should. And you're even more likely to have a woman that likes to pick fights & then claim she's the innocent victim. Really? Why do it then?

Our government pressures employers to hire women over men. There is a lost generation of men who came out of college in the 1970s. The economy wasn't growing fast enough to employ all the baby boomers coming out of college and the boomerettes wanted jobs too. In the late 1970s, unemployment became especially tough (Carter's famous stagflation and national malaise" era). I know men who never could get employment commensurate to their education. These men couldn't afford traditional marriage.

A guy in the comments there had a very good ninth reason, and one that has affected me a lot: Seeing the married men around me.

I know some men who are happily married. I know men who have been badly broken and beaten by divorce. But to me, the biggest category appears to be the married men who are weighed down by life, who got into a lifelong trap they didn't realize was going to be like this, and can't get out. Their whole lives are about doing things they don't want to be doing, for the benefit of a wife that doesn't appreciate his sacrifice.

It's especially painful if I knew their earlier selves, the happy guys who looked forward to their day because good things might happen. What happened to them? Marriage, that's what. Guys do notice, and learn.